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How Downs missed out on Tottenham’s R500 million signing Yves Bissouma

Yves Bissouma has completed Tottenham medical ahead of his move to Tottenham in a deal which could rise to £35m [R687 million]. Spurs will pay an initial £25m [almost R500 million] with £10m [almost R200 million] in add-ons agreed with Brighton.

The 25-year-old is set to become the club’s third summer signing after the arrivals of Ivan Perisic and Fraser Forster.

Interestingly, South African champions Mamelodi Sundowns scouted the Malian midfield enforcer when he was 20 with recommendations to bring him to Chloorkop. 

Bissouma caught the eye of Downs scouts at the 2016 African Nations Championship (CHAN) held in Rwanda. At the time, he was in his second season with AS Real Bamako, who play in the top Malian division. 

He was praised for having a “perfect understanding of his central midfield position, great passing ability and vision” by the scouts, who recommended that the club further assess him.

The Ivory Coast-born star, raised in Mali, has since developed into a much more rounded midfielder in the English Premiership, where he became a vital cog in the Brighton & Hove Albion engine room. Interestingly, Zimbabwe journalist Petros Kausiyo described Bissouma as “Mali’s best player on show” in that edition of CHAN.

Yves Bissouma
Yves Bissouma

“Mali’s best player on show in their opening game was central midfielder Yves Bissouma, and given the manner in which 20-year-old AS Real Bamako player tormented Uganda, Callisto Pasuwa [then Zimbabwe coach] has every reason to worry about his own midfield.

“Bissouma is not only enterprising but has precision in his passing, and [Blessing] Moyo was likely to be employed to check his movements especially given that the Eagles are also good at counter raids,” Kausiyo wrote in the Herald. 

Exactly five months after that CHAN tournament, Bissouma was signed by French side Lille in July 2016. Brighton then signed Bissouma from the Ligue 1 side for an undisclosed fee two seasons later. Bissouma was voted as Brighton’s Player of the Month twice successively in April and May. After the first month of the 2021/22 season in August, he again won the award.

Nobody else in the 11 seasons Brighton have been running these monthly awards has ever won three in a row. 

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